I received your kind and interesting letter yesterday. - It gave me sincere pleasure to hear from you, and to know that you are well; and, to tell the truth, I am very glad you are out af England and about to return to the quiet af your own home. I assure you I have aften thought af you, and wondered how you were getting an, and how you bore all the fatigues, af body and mind, to which you were exposed. How you must long for rest! I know this feeling so well, I know, too, the delight with which one returns to work after having, as it were, neglected it - for a time. One returns to the tale or poem that is begun, with almost self-reproachful feelings for having left it so lang unnoticed; and with redoubled love the dear child of our inspiration is then looked upon and taken up again in our arms. - After such relaxation, and after having seen people and new things and listened to those men whose very names have long been a charm to us, how full to overflowing does the mind and heart then seem; how teeming, even into bursting with fresh thought, which we ardently lang to give utterance to - to disburden ourselves af the quickening load, by giving those emotions a living breathing existence. Is it not what you feel too?

When you are once settled in your home, where I hope same day to sit and converse with you, write to me and say you are well and with cheerful heart busily at work.

What a pretty story that is, which you relate af the old porter at the hospital in Edinbro'. I heartily sympathise with your pleasurable emotions at the circumstance. - It is a pity you did not go to Abbotsford - but I hope you will visit England again, and then perhaps we can go together: that is, if you would like it.

Did you get a letter I, sent to Mr. Hambro af August 6, and one
sent to Lorck in Leipsig of September 8. You do not mention either in your last, but I wish to know if they both reached you. Do not forget to tell me. Was it not at Nysö that little Tuk lived? Where Thorwaldsen aften came; and did little Tuk not wish to be thought a Holsteiner and not a Dane. Be so good as to answer this question.

And, dear Andersen, be so kind to let me know if you can send me a Märchen as you promised me, for the time is very near when I must send the Manuscript to the printer. If you cannot, then let me know, yes or no. And write to me soon, il it is only a word, that I may know you have received this; for some af my former letters never reached you.

I read in the Literary Gazette about your bust and that af Jenny Lind, and was pleased that they had been so well executed. And your portrait that was being done when I was in England, is it like? Have you brought some with you?

The volume of your tales - Little Tuk, etc. etc. etc., is now ready and in the printer's hands. A sort of preface, which I wrote yesterday, will, I think, rather please you. The other book, in which your Märchen is to come, must appear soon, as the publishers want it early before Christmas. Now farewell, dear Andersen. How happy you must be in your own dear littIe Denmark again, and to greet and be greeted once more by all your old friends and the sweet children, who know and love you so well!